


I love you as certain dark things are to be loved

by oschun



Series: Wolfy Tales [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Absent John Winchester, Alternate Universe, Brotherly Love, Childhood to Adulthood, Dream Sex, Fantasy and magic elements, First Time, M/M, Nature Magic, Plot, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-12 02:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19938817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oschun/pseuds/oschun
Summary: "The night your brother was born, Dean, the moon turned the color of blood and the wolves surrounded the house. They howled all night. They were heralding his birth."An AU storyworld in which Sam struggles with his dark powers, Dean tries to be noble and heroic, and both of them love each other desperately.





	I love you as certain dark things are to be loved

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII.
> 
> This contains UST when they're younger. Sam is seventeen when it gets explicit.

One of Dean’s happiest memories is of being in the kitchen with his mother. It’s a scene that is precise and clear in his mind, like a moment trapped and preserved in amber.

It’s a warm spring day. She’s standing at the window in a shaft of light the color of honey and he knows exactly what her sun-warmed hair would smell like if he went over to her and buried his face in it. He can hear his father outside splitting logs. Sam is in the room next to the kitchen, making that gurgling stream of incoherent sound that is the secret language of babies. In front of Dean is a wooden plate and on it is a thick chunk of freshly-baked bread covered in creamy butter and bright-red jam. A mid-afternoon treat just for him. The anticipation of eating it is almost as delicious as the actual taste.

All of those details are precisely the same in his worst nightmare.

He dreams that his mother is at the kitchen window in a stream of golden light. There’s the sound of his father chopping wood outside. There’s the anticipation of the wonderful taste of warm bread and sweet jam. And then there’s the terrifying sound of heavy paws and clicking nails on the stone floor as an enormous wolf slowly pads into the kitchen, bringing with it a draught of icy air and the wild and earthy smell of the woods.

The dream-wolf is bigger and more frightening than any wolf Dean has ever seen in the forest. It’s back reaches the height of the kitchen table and its eyes are an unearthly, glowing yellow. There’s blood on its muzzle and Dean knows from the sudden silence outside that his father is dead. 

His mother turns away from the window and looks at him, not at the wolf. She smiles sadly, but without surprise, as if she’s been waiting for this to happen. She tells him to shut his eyes with an expression on her face that will be forever etched in Dean's mind. He shakes his head, but does as he's told when she repeats the instruction more firmly. He feels burning tears running down his face and pushes his fingers into his ears because to hear his mother die with his eyes shut would be a terrible thing.

He waits, his will and body frozen, his thundering heartbeat the only sound in his ears. Time draws out endlessly.

Finally, he feels the wolf’s hot panting breath on his neck. The smell from its open mouth is terrible. He keeps his eyes shut and his fingers pressed tightly into his ears, waiting for the wolf to tear out his throat, but the terrible, breathless expectation of the bite never comes. He opens his eyes to see the wolf has disappeared and there’s no sign of his mother, except for a large pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

Sam is lying in the middle of the pool of blood, as if he’s just been born, his little arms and legs waving in the air.

Dean gets up from where he’s been sitting frozen in the chair and carefully stands over his blood-covered brother, knowing what he will see before he looks into Sam's glowing yellow eyes. Sam reaches up with his little arms and Dean feels he has to make some kind of essential, irrevocable choice here in this moment. He understands that somehow the dream-wolf is in Sam or is a part of Sam. He hesitates for a few seconds, then leans down and lifts his brother out of the blood and into his arms. 

He has that same dream over and over again.

His mother dies when he’s four years old, but it’s not a wolf that kills her. Or that’s what he’s told. People say the fire was caused by a knocked over candle. It’s a common enough occurrence in a village where the houses are built of wood and straw.

The fire starts in the bedroom upstairs.

Dean's waiting in the room below, terrified, torn between the ingrained habit of obeying his father and the instinctive desire to ignore his barked command and race up the stairs after him. Before he can make the decision to disobey the instruction, his father comes rushing down again, his eyes red and wild, a sooty smear on his forehead. He hands Dean a swaddled bundle and looks at him fiercely. Dean meets his gaze and nods. There’s no need for words. He understands the responsibility he’s been given. It isn’t fear he feels in this moment but a swell of pride.

He doesn’t cry as he carries the precious burden his father’s given him out of the burning house. Safely outside, he notices that Sam is watching him from between the folds of the blanket and he isn’t crying either. His expression reminds Dean of the faded paintings of sad-looking men on the walls of the church. He wonders if he’s the only person who thinks Sam’s eyes have never looked like the eyes of a baby.

Holding his brother protectively against his chest, he looks up at the bedroom window. In the flames is the outlined shape of a man—his father—and the silhouette of an enormous wolf. The wolf is standing upright like a man. They look like they’re fighting. Dean clutches Sam tightly and waits in dread to see who or what will come out of the house, desperately praying it will be his mother and father, when an awful thought occurs to him. What if he had to choose between them? What if only one could survive?

He doesn’t allow his mind to make that choice.

Later, his father says to him, “There was no wolf, Dean. You imagined it. The fire was an accident. It’s just us now. Just me and you and Sammy.”

For years afterwards, Dean allows himself the occasional indulgence of sitting at the kitchen table with his eyes closed and imagines his mother at the window, a half smile playing around her mouth as she watches something outside that amuses her. He conjures the sounds of spring from his imagination, bird-song and the buzzing of bees. Spring was her favorite time of year. The yeasty smell of bread rising and the fruity scent of jam cooking is heavy in the air. The light is honey-gold through her hair. He tries not to allow the nightmarish sound of heavy wolf paws to intrude on that beautiful memory.

He knows what he saw the night she died. There was a wolf upstairs in the flames. His father is lying to him.

When he’s old enough, he makes a knife from an old broken scythe, hones the blade down to a silver-sharp edge and sleeps with it near him always, fiercely promising himself that he will not close his eyes or block his ears when a wolf comes again. 

It’s a cold, snowy winter’s night many years later when it does.

Dean is fourteen years old. Almost a man. He and Sam are sleeping in front of the fire downstairs, wrapped up together to keep warm. Sam is nestled close against his side. 

It’s the smell that wakes Dean. A cold, earthy scent of the forest and another smell of meat and blood.

The wolf is sitting on its haunches next to Sam. It’s so big. Seated, its head could reach above the waist of a tall man. Dean blinks awake and grips the handle of his knife. The wolf gives him a dismissive look, cocks its head and returns to its contemplation of Sam’s sleeping face. Its yellow eyes reflect the orange glare from the fire. 

“I will kill you.”

The wolf shows its long, yellow teeth, not in a snarl but in what looks like a mocking smile. The reeking stench from its open mouth makes Dean cringe. He has an uncontrollable, humiliating feeling that he’s going wet himself.

The wolf leans forward and sniffs Sam’s neck, not touching him, just sniffing the heat from his skin. Dean’s heart thunders in his chest. Sam stirs, then speaks a few mumbled words in a language Dean doesn’t understand, something that sounds like the language the visiting priest uses when he comes once a year and everyone in the village puts on their best clothes and dutifully squeezes into the old church.

At the sound of Sam’s words, the wolf jerks back and bares its teeth, growling low. Dean swallows hard. “I will kill you,” he repeats. Gathering his courage, he stands up and determinedly grips his knife tight.

The wolf gives Sam another long, considering look, before making a snuffing sound, as if in irritation, then gets up and pads silently out of the house.

Letting out a long, shuddering sigh, Dean lies back down next to Sam, his body stiff with cold and fear. Sam is still lost in the oblivious world of sleep. He nestles close against Dean’s side.

Always perceptive, Sam gives him thoughtful, considering looks the next day, but Dean doesn’t tell him what happened the night before. That knowledge is the burden and responsibility of big brothers.

That’s how Dean grows up, knowing there are things he has to keep to himself, things he has to carry on his own. It makes him feel so alone sometimes.

Four years after the wolf visits in the night there’s a shift in Dean’s understanding of the responsibility that goes with being Sam’s big brother.

There’s a boy in the village who has taken a dislike to Sam, taunting and teasing him whenever he catches Sam alone. He’s a cruel and manipulative boy with two faces, the one he shows in public and the hidden face that is revealed to the victims of his cruelty. He even makes Sam come home crying once, and Sam doesn’t give in to tears easily. Dean would like to teach the boy a lesson but Sam begs him to stay out of it.

One afternoon, Dean goes out looking for Sam when he doesn’t come home and finds him with the boy in a hidden clearing at the edge of the village.

It takes Dean a minute to understand what is going on. Sam and the boy are physically struggling near a disused, old well. The boy has Sam gripped by the upper arms and is trying to shove him over the low wall surrounding the mouth of the well. Sam cries out and the distress in his voice has Dean racing across the clearing before he’s even fully processed what's happening. Acting on instinct and adrenaline, he pushes Sam clear, then topples the other boy into the well.

The boy’s fall is cushioned by a layer of mud and debris at the bottom that Dean would like to think he knew was there before he pushed him in, but if he’s honest, he didn’t know, and he’s not sure if he cares - a thought that scares him a little when he realizes what he’s done.

Sam gets up from where Dean had thrown him to the ground and stands next to him. The two of them peer down at the boy in the bottom of the well. Sam is standing close and Dean can feel him trembling. He turns and examines him. “Did he hurt you?”

Sam shakes his head and dashes away his tears. "He said he just wanted to talk and I believed him. I've never done anything to him. Why does he hate me so much?” 

There’s a shout from inside the well and they look down at the sputtering, enraged, mud-covered boy. He shakes his fist up at them. “Just you wait, Sam Winchester. You’ll pay for this.”

Sam hisses angrily and clenches the stone parapet around the well, his knuckles going white. Dean notices how a large rock has come loose from the inner wall of the well and is on the verge of falling in. He has a sudden urge to pull it free and hurl it down at the boy.

“Yes, he deserves it,” Sam says quietly, as if Dean had voiced the thought aloud. 

They turn to look at each other. It’s a silent moment between them. Words aren’t necessary to express what both of them are thinking. The enraged boy is caught like an animal in a trapping pit. They’re alone here. Nobody would hear it happen. Nobody would suspect them of such a thing. They could cover the body with rocks. The boy would never be found. It passes between them, this weighted knowledge and perfectly understood possibility. 

Sam takes a step backward. “Leave him in there. Somebody will eventually find him.” He gives Dean a calm, cool look. “That’s punishment enough.”

Later, Dean can hardly believe he contemplated doing such an evil thing. He must’ve imagined the silent communication with Sam. When he thinks back to those few moments, it feels like a dream, like he’d somehow absorbed Sam’s rage and was acting as an instrument of it. He senses they were teetering on the edge of something that only Sam had the power to control, that Dean would have done anything Sam wanted. Absolutely anything.

They’re sitting around the dinner table that night and Dean's wondering what it would feel like to know you have blood on your hands, to know you’re a killer. How that would separate you from other people who think killing is a sin. Part of him understands the moral necessity of thinking it is sinful, but another part of him wonders if mothers would be ripped away from you so easily and brothers would suffer at the hands of village bullies so cruelly if more people were willing to get blood on their hands. 

“What’s going on, boys?”

Dean hadn’t realized they'd been staring wordlessly at each other across the table, the food in front of them and their father at the head of the table completely forgotten as they watched each other. “Nothing, dad,” they say simultaneously and return to eating their supper, studiously avoiding each other’s eyes.

That night Sam gets into bed with him as he does on most winter nights and settles close, his hand on Dean’s chest, a warm weight right over his heart. Dean watches him sleep. The softened, vulnerable expression on Sam's face overwhelms him with a feeling of such fierce, protective love it borders on violence. 

Eventually Dean falls asleep and dreams about walking through the woods at night.

The sky is dark and heavy and there’s a strange light coming through the trees, as if the moon were setting and casting its pale white light low to the ground. Dean can hear a sound thrumming in the air, leading him on toward some specific but as yet unknown destination.

He arrives in a clearing where there’s a tall, broad-shouldered man waiting for him. Even though the man’s face and form are unfamiliar, Dean feels a leap of recognition, accompanied by such a rush of intense feeling it overwhelms him. A wolf with glowing eyes is at the man’s side. It growls as Dean approaches. The man pats the wolf’s head reassuringly and smiles when Dean stands in front of him. Dean is struck by the beauty of his face.

Placing a hand on Dean’s shoulder, the man gently, but firmly, pushes him to his knees. Dean knows what he’s being encouraged to do. He takes his knife out from where it’s tucked into his belt. The man smiles again and nods in permission. Dean takes the knife in both hands and plunges it into his own chest. He cuts out his heart and lays it at the man’s feet. It lies there on the ground, beating slowly. The blood on his hands looks black in the moonlight.

Dean wakes with a sudden start and clutches his chest. Sam’s hand is still there covering his heart. The light of dawn is glowing at the window. Sam’s awake, propped up on his elbow and watching him. “Bad dream?”

Drawing in a steadying breath, Dean twines his fingers with Sam’s and shakes his head. “No, just strange.” His voice is hoarse and scratchy, his heartbeat uneven.

“Your heart was beating so loud it woke me up. Was it a dream about me?”

Dean meets his eyes. “Not everything is about you.”

“Isn’t it?” Sam smiles precociously. He untangles their fingers and strokes Dean’s chest, his fingers catching on Dean’s nipple and making little sparks of heat flare up under his skin.

Dean pushes his hand away. “Sometimes I dream about how comfortable it would be to have my bed to myself and not have your cold feet on my legs all night or your foul-smelling breath in my face first thing. Did you brush your teeth last night?"

Sam grins widely, showing how white and clean his teeth are. 

"Mmm," Dean muses, "they’re going green. Soon you’ll look like Old Mother Allgood. They’ll be calling you a witch soon enough.”

Sam pinches his nipple. “At least I wash every day and don’t smell like a hairy old goat.” 

“Don’t be jealous just because I have hair. Maybe one day you’ll look less like a newborn piglet and more like a man.” He pulls Sam’s arm above his head and inspects his armpit. “Fourteen years old and still no sign of them? What sort of unnatural sorcery is this?”

Sam squirms and laughs when Dean tickles him, but turns serious when Dean lies on his back and closes his eyes in the hope of having a few more minutes of sleep. Dean can almost hear him thinking.

“Do you think—”

“No,” Dean replies, his eyes still closed.

“Do you think I’m a—"

“No,” Dean replies firmly and shoves Sam out of the bed. “Go wash up. I’ll start breakfast.”

Sam gets up from the floor and heads toward the door. He pauses in the doorway and says, “I love you,” before disappearing into the next room.

Dean stares at the space Sam just occupied and thinks about how defining a thing that sort of love is for the person who is the recipient of it.

He gets up, goes downstairs and relights the fire. His father comes down with his rifle and a packed bag. Dean remembers him saying he’d be leaving today on a hunting trip. Sam comes down and the three of them have breakfast together before Sam leaves for school.

The door closes behind Sam, and Dean gets up to start his chores.

“Sit down a second, Dean.”

He does as he’s told and waits expectantly.

“What happened yesterday?”

Dean schools his expression. “Nothing.”

His father half smiles as if he’d already anticipated Dean’s answer. “I know you love your brother. You have a good heart and you’re loyal to him. You have the best of your mother in you.”

Hesitantly, Dean smiles. Praise and affection from his undemonstrative, stoical father are rare.

“Did Sam do something yesterday?” His father holds up his hand when Dean starts shaking his head. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t know why I even asked. I already know something happened to make you look that distracted and unsettled last night.”

Dean shrugs and remains silent, remains alone in his knowledge of things he can’t share with anybody else, not even his father, who is mostly a stranger to him.

“We need to talk, Dean. You’re old enough. This conversation is long overdue, but talking is not easy for me. I've avoided it, and not sharing things with you has made you more like me. If she had been here, things would have been different. The two of us might’ve been different.”

Dean recognizes the truth of that statement and nods.

“We were made different by circumstance, but Sam was born different. He’s not like you and me, or anybody else.”

Dean crosses his arms defensively.

“You don’t want to hear it and I understand why, but there are things we can’t choose to ignore or pretend aren’t true. The night Sammy was born the moon turned the color of blood and the wolves surrounded the house. They howled all night. They were heralding his birth.”

His father gives him a hard look when Dean snorts in disbelief. “Sam has something powerful inside him. He was born with it and as he grows older it will grow stronger. Stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about.”

Dean sighs and admits quietly, “Yes, I know.” How could he not know. He and Sam are so close, so intertwined together that sometimes Dean doesn’t know where he begins and Sam ends. “But he’s not bad,” he adds fiercely.

“I didn’t say he was. Power like that is unnatural but it doesn’t have to be bad. Good or bad is a choice, one that Sam will have to make.” His father leans forward. “But you need to understand that Sam's power will always be dangerous. He needs your guidance. You’ll have to be strong. He loves you and he follows your lead in all things.” 

An image of angry face looking up at him from the bottom of a well suddenly appears in Dean’s mind. He remembers the overwhelming urge to hurt and destroy. 

“And you are strong enough to protect him from the dangers out there in the world and also from himself.”

“What happened that night when mom died?”

His father sighs and rubs a hand over his beard. “She loved you boys.”

“There was a wolf in the house,” Dean says, determined to finally hear the truth of what happened that night.

“Yes, there was a wolf in the house.”

“It came for Sam.”

“It wanted him because of his power. Your mother would never allow that. She died protecting him.”

“Wolves don’t walk on their hind legs.”

“They’re not like other wolves. They are wolf and man. Something more. Something worse. They’re an obscenity, an abomination. There are monsters in the woods, Dean.”

Dean has known for a while now that stories told around the fire on a winter’s night of creatures lurking in the forest aren’t just stories.

Last winter a woman in the village used her meat cleaver to chop off the paw of a hungry wolf when it slunk into her kitchen and tried to eat her. The men of the village dug a trapping pit and two days later they found the woman’s husband (who had disappeared during a hunting trip the previous winter) lying at the bottom of the pit. He was naked, weak and sick, growling and gibbering in some strange language. There was a raw, festering stump where his hand should’ve been. The villagers stoned him to death right there in the pit. Dean’s father had been on a hunting trip when it happened.

“It’s not deer you’re hunting when you go away, is it.”

“No,” his father says in a level voice, his eyes unblinking.

“You’re looking for the monster that killed mom.”

“Yes.”

“How long will you be gone this time?”

“I don’t know. Probably a long time. You’ll have to take care of things while I’m away.”

Realizing the true reason why they’re having this conversation, Dean says grimly, “You don’t think you’ll be coming back.”

His father gives him a sad smile. “Look after your brother while I’m away. Protect him.”

“You don’t love us enough to stay.”

His father’s breath catches sharply and Dean takes a perverse pleasure in hearing his pain. Why should he be the only one hurting.

His father grips his shoulder. “I loved her. I have to kill it for her, because I couldn't do it that night. If I have any love left in me, _all_ of it belongs to you and Sam. If I don't kill it, it may come again for him.”

Dean doesn’t tell him about how the wolf returned in the night years ago to watch Sam sleep, and how Sam made it go away by reciting something in the language of the priest, words that he had no natural way of knowing.

Is this what love does to people? Dean wonders, looking at the drawn lines of pain on his father's face. Does the god of love always demand these gifts of grief and fire and revenge and abandonment? Does it always end in looking down the abyss of a deep, dark well and wondering if you have the strength to kill for it or to die for it?

What a terrible thing it is to love, he silently concludes. 

His father looks at him intently. “Your brother’s power will tempt him. You have to be stronger than he is, and if Sam falls into wickedness, you’ll have to stop him. He’s our responsibility.”

Dean shakes his head. That’s a sacrifice he’s not willing to make to the god of love. “I could never hurt Sam.”

His father grips his shoulder tightly. “Then make sure you don’t have to, Dean.”

It’s six months later and their father still hasn’t returned to them. Sam stops asking when he’ll be back. They know he’s alive because they’ve received sporadic news and letters from travelers through the village.

How long is a long time, Dean wonders.

Winter leads into spring, the snow thaws and everything starts turning green.

It’s a warm day and they’re in the woods gathering mushrooms. The air is filled with the sound of nature awakening. Birds and squirrels dart in branches, butterflies flit between the trees and the smell of the earth thawing is rich in the air. 

“Dean?”

Dropping a handful of mushrooms into his gathering bag, Dean turns to look up at Sam behind him.

Sam’s expression is serious. “Do you like Anna Abram?”

Dean laughs and stands up. “Anna? I don’t know. Why?”

He’s deflecting. He does like Anna. She’s pretty, has long dark hair and big brown eyes. They’ve spent a lot of time together over the past month. She’s sweet and high-spirited and has made it clear she’s ready to take things further than the kisses they’ve secretly shared in her father’s barn. When Dean’s alone, he thinks about seeing her naked, about touching her body, dreams about it, wakes up hard in the morning and escapes the room he shares with Sam to find relief in his own hand before Sam wakes up. Since their father left, Sam has spent every night in his bed, seeking warmth and comfort. 

Dean’s been holding himself back from taking it further with Anna. Why, he’s not sure. Maybe because he’s a little afraid. Or maybe it has something to do with this feeling it would somehow be a betrayal of Sam. His brother needs him. All of him. And sharing himself with a girl would leave less for Sam.

“There are blueberries over there on the other side of that line of trees. Let’s pick them and go home. It’s getting late.”

Sam refuses to be distracted. “Why won’t you just answer the question?”

“I don’t have to tell you everything.”

Sam looks surprised, then scowls. “Why not? I tell you everything.”

“You’re younger than me.”

“I’m almost fifteen, Dean. I know what you’re doing in the morning.”

Dean flushes. “That’s private, Sam.”

“I can hear you. Do you think about her when you’re doing it?”

Dean shrugs, his usual physical response to things he doesn’t want to talk about. 

“I—” Sam hesitates over the words, then continues, “I do it too.”

The sudden picture in Dean’s mind is a jolt. “In my bed?”

“I’m careful. I don’t get it on the blankets.”

That sends another cascade of images through Dean’s mind. He doesn’t know why he asks the question, he shouldn’t, doesn’t actually want to know. Or maybe he does. “What do you think about when you’re doing it?”

Sam looks away, cheeks reddening, and says in a quiet voice. “I don’t think about girls.”

Dean knows he needs to stop this conversation before it takes them into unknown and dangerous waters. He grins and asks, “Do you think about Little Joe?”

Little Joe is Sam’s pony.

Sam gives him a horrified look. “Dean!”

Dean tries not to laugh when he says, “Little Joe does have a big one. Is that what you think about when you’ve got your hand in your pants?” He can’t help bursting into laughter at Sam’s expression.

“Dean, that’s disgusting!”

“You know Old Bill Bailey sticks it in his sheep, right? He prefers sleeping in the barn than with Mrs. Bailey. Baa! Baa!” he bleats when Sam’s expression grows more horrified. 

“I’m not talking to you anymore. You’re totally disgusting.” Sam sniffs, turns his back on him and starts walking away.

Before he can get more than a few yards, Dean grabs him from behind and bleats again loudly in his ear. Wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist, he moans in an exaggerated voice, “Oh Little Joe, I want to ride you so hard.”

Giggling, Sam squirms in his arms and tries to escape. Dean hooks a leg around his ankles and pushes him to the ground, rolling on top of him. “I love you, Little Joe. You’re so big and strong between my legs. Giddy up! Giddy up!”

Snorting with laughter, Sam pushes Dean onto his back and straddles him. He’s grown so strong in the past few months. He starts tickling Dean’s sides. “Maybe you’re the one who wants to ride my horse, Dean.”

“Ponies are for little boys, Sammy. I like fillies,” Dean manages to get out between laughing.

Sam tightly grips Dean’s wrists and pushes them above his head. Leaning forward, he says in a low, very grown up voice, “Are you sure? Because it sounds like you’ve been thinking about it.”

Something suddenly twists deep and hot in Dean’s insides when he looks at Sam’s mouth. His face is so close, his lips red and moist. He's looking at Dean with a strange intensity.

Dean's so transfixed by Sam's expression that for a few seconds he doesn't process the sound he can hear coming from the shrubbery to the side of him. It's quiet, but eventually becomes unmistakable. It's a low, menacing growl. He turns his head warily and not five yards away is a wolf baring its teeth at them, its head hanging low, eyes shining and watchful.

Leaping instinctively to his feet, he shoves Sam behind him just as another wolf appears through the shrubbery next to the first one. It growls low in its throat and leans back on its hind legs, about to spring at them. Dean's body tenses, but before he can move, Sam frees his arm and puts himself between Dean and the wolves.

Sam makes a reassuring shushing sound at the wolves and they instantly stop snarling. Cocking their heads simultaneously, they look at him with curious expressions. He makes the shushing sound again and they sit back on their haunches. He croons quietly. Dean can’t hear what he’s saying, can’t make out if it’s actual words. The wolves start panting, their lips stretched wide in what look like a pair of cheerful grins, then they turn and disappear back into the shrubbery.

When he has enough breath to actually speak, Dean asks, “Sam, how did you do that?”

Sam turns to face him. His skin is pale and his eyes are wide. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? What did you say to them? Why did they obey you like that?”

“I don’t know, Dean.” Sam looks confused and frightened. His fist clutches convulsively at his side, something he only does when he’s distressed.

“Okay.” Dean says reassuringly and pulls him under his arm. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve always had the gift of soothing animals. You’re so good with the horses. It’s the same thing. It’s alright, Sam. Come on, let’s go home now.”

That night when they’re lying in bed together, Dean hears his father’s voice in his mind: _Sam’s power is dangerous and as he grows older it will only grow stronger._

Just how dangerous becomes clear to Dean a week later.

He’s lying with Anna Abram on a large pile of hay in her father’s barn. Her dress is unbuttoned and the sight of her naked breasts makes him breathless with desire. He has a hand between her legs and is rubbing his thumb against that hard little nub of flesh that makes her gasp with pleasure. He’s hard and aching for release. He takes her hand and presses it against his erection, is about to kiss her when he feels a ripple underneath him, a shifting movement beneath the surface of the hay they’re lying on. He goes still and becomes aware of the strangest sensation, as if he's floating on top of water, along with that accompanying awareness of an unknown depth beneath him. 

Suddenly, Anna is wrenched bodily out of his arms, like something gripped her from underneath and pulled her deep into the pile of hay. Her startled face is visible for a second before she disappears, her outstretched hand the last thing he sees as she's sucked under and the hay collapse over her.

He’s too stunned to do anything for a few seconds, then leaps up and starts trying to dig her out, scrabbling through the hay and throwing fistfuls of it over his shoulder, shouting her name. In the midst of his panic, a prickling sense of a presence behind him makes him glance over his shoulder.

Sam is standing in the doorway of the barn, his expression blank, like a hard mask has settled over his face. His eyes glow as if they’re reflecting the golden sunlight streaming in behind him. There’s blood dripping from his nose.

Dean hears a frightened sob and turns to see Anna crawl out from the bottom of the hay mound, sucking in terrified gasps of breath. He scrambles down to her and helps her to her feet. She’s disheveled, covered in dust and there are scratches on her skin where the sharper edges of the hay cut her, but otherwise she appears unhurt.

When he looks back, Sam has disappeared.

That night they sit silently at the kitchen table, neither of them even pretending to eat their supper. Dean stares at Sam angrily, his teeth beginning to hurt because he’s biting down the furious words so hard. His spoon is clenched in his hand like a weapon.

Sam stirs the meat stew around his bowl. He looks miserable. Pushing his bowl away, he opens his mouth.

“Don’t.” Dean cuts him off. “Don’t pretend or lie. I know what you did. I _know_ , Sam.”

Sam clenches his jaw. “I wasn’t going to lie or pretend. I was going to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.” 

“Exactly. That’s the problem,” Dean replies harshly.

“I wouldn’t have hurt her. I just saw the two of you together like that and I don’t know what happened. I really didn’t mean to."

Dean grabs Sam’s hand across the table. “You have to think. You could kill somebody. And if anybody finds out what you can do, they’ll drown you in the river or burn you alive at the stake or stone you to death in the middle of the village.”

Sam’s eyes widen and he shivers.

“They’ll drag you out of the house and kill you in front of everybody. They’ll burn our house down. They’ll cheer and laugh and celebrate afterwards. And maybe they’ll do the same thing to me because I’m your brother and they’ll think I’m just like you.”

Sam’s eyes go hard. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen,” he says with cold confidence.

It’s Dean’s turn to shiver. He tightens his hold on Sam’s hand, making him wince. “You can _never_ use it against other people. No matter what. Promise me, Sam.”

Sam pulls his hand away and rubs it. He looks toward the kitchen window, his expression faraway and contemplative. He looks back at Dean and says quietly, “I wouldn’t have made you hurt him just because he tried to hurt me. I could have. I could have made you do it. But I didn’t. Even though he deserved it.”

Dean frowns. “Who?”

“The boy in the well.”

An icy feeling runs through Dean’s veins and his heart starts racing in his chest. He takes a few deep breaths, then says in a hard voice, “I am the only person who really knows you and loves you, the only person who will accept you the way that you are. But if you use your power to control me, I will leave this house, and you, and I will never come back.”

His heart tightens at the way Sam’s bottom lip quivers, but Dean ignores that built-in desire to protect him. He forges on. “I will never come back and you will be alone.” 

Sam’s shoulders slump. He looks so small and vulnerable, the way he did when he was a little boy. Dean lets him cry. Eventually, Sam wipes his nose with the sleeve of his shirt and looks at him with reddened eyes. “I promise I won’t do it again.”

Biting his lip, Sam looks away. "I don't know why, but for some reason it's a lot harder with you than with other people. It’s easier to put suggestions in their minds. You resist it. You’re more stubborn."

Dean narrows his eyes and he can feel his nostrils flaring in anger. “You’ve done that to me?”

Sam glances up and gives him a small smile. “Why do you think we’ve had fruit pie after supper every night this past week?”

Dean angrily swats his bowl of stew off the table and it smashes against the wall. Sam flinches and rounds his shoulders, drawing in on himself. Dean feels like he wants to tear the house down around them, but eventually get himself under control. “How can I trust you if I can’t trust myself? If I don’t know whether it’s me or it's actually you making me do something?” 

Sam stares at the table, his head lowered, then squares his shoulders and looks up. “I know that. I’m sorry, Dean. I was curious. I wanted to know what I could do, but I don’t like the way it makes me feel. And I can control it. I have to control it all the time. I promise I won’t use it against other people, especially not you. Please, Dean, you can trust me.”

Dean gives him a hard, unblinking look.

Sam’s expression tightens and his mouth turns down at the corners. “Don’t look at me like that. I know there’s something wrong with me. I feel it all the time around other people. I feel like I’m pretending, but not with you, never with you. Please trust me. I’m a good person.”

“Of course you’re a good person, Sam, but that power comes from a dark place. You can’t trust it. It will change you if you let it.”

“Yes,” Sam nods, “I know.”

They sit like that in silence for a few minutes not looking at each other.

“What will she tell other people?”

Dean sighs. “Nothing. Do you think she wants anybody to know what she was doing with me in the barn? She’s convinced herself that she just fell through the hay.” He gets up to clean the mess on the floor. “And don’t even think you’re having any fruit pie tonight.”

It comes out meaner than he meant it to, so he ruffles Sam’s hair and says in a gently teasing voice, “You’re getting too fat anyway. You don’t want to give the village kids another reason to mock you.”

Sam smiles in relief at his tone and pokes Dean’s stomach with his finger. “I’m not the one who drinks too much beer and is starting to look like Old Bill Bailey with his big belly.”

Dean lifts his shirt and tightens his muscles. He takes Sam’s hand and places it on his stomach. “Feel that, Sammy. That’s what rock hard feels like.”

Sam blushes and pulls his hand away. “Don’t lie to yourself, Dean,” he mumbles, before getting up and abruptly leaving the room.

Dean stares after him, so many mixed-up feelings churning in his gut.

Tired and emotionally drained, Dean goes to bed early and is about to drop off when Sam appears next to his bed, a candle in hand, and asks tentatively, “Can I sleep with you?”

Warmth floods through him at the anticipation of having Sam close to him where he can hold him and protect him and pretend nothing else exists. Ignoring it, he says gruffly, “Don’t you think we’re getting too old to do that anymore? Sleep in your own bed.”

Sam remains standing next to Dean’s bed, his expression hurt and confused in the candlelight.

Dean flicks back the covers and says, “Hurry up. It's cold.“

Sam places the candle on the table next to Dean’s bed, blows it out and gets in under the covers, slotting his cold feet between Dean’s calves. “You’re freezing,” Dean complains and wraps an arm over him. His hair smells vaguely of herbs from the garden. It's a distinctively Sam smell.

“Dean?” Sam says after they’ve been lying there for a few minutes.

“Mmm,” Dean replies sleepily.

“What’s it like being with a girl like that?”

“It’s late, Sam. Go to sleep.”

“Do you love her?”

Dean huffs a sigh and turns on his back to stare at the ceiling. “No.”

“Then why would you want to do that with her?”

“You’re almost fifteen, Sam. Don’t tell me you don’t know why.”

“Last time the priest came to the village he said it was a sin to lie with a woman who wasn’t your wife.”

“That’s what priests say in church. It’s not how it really works when people aren’t in church.”

“So they’re all lying?”

“No, not everybody. Mom and dad loved each other.”

Curling in under Dean’s arm, a leg thrown over him, Sam sighs. “I can’t remember her.”

An image of his mother at the kitchen window and the scent of sweet jam suddenly assaults Dean’s senses. Then he hears the heavy footfall of a wolf. For a second he thinks it’s real and cocks his ears for the sound of something moving downstairs.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Dean relaxes his body and turns over onto his side. “Go to sleep.”

Sam fits his body close behind Dean’s. “I love you.”

Dean pulls Sam’s arm around his waist. “Don’t snore in my ear.” 

He can sense Sam smiling in the dark before he replies, “Don’t fart on me.” 

Dean smiles back and falls asleep.

He dreams about the man in the forest again.

He’s waiting for Dean in the clearing alone, no wolf at his side. The moon is hanging low, the night is warm and there’s a heavy scent of jasmine in the air. The man is naked and so beautiful in the moonlight that Dean’s breath catches. He stands tall and still. The hard planes of his body and smooth golden-brown of his skin make him look like he’s been carved out of living wood. His eyes glow a dazzling tawny yellow.

Like before, he smiles at Dean and pushes him to his knees.

Knowing what he’s being encouraged to do, Dean leans forward and gently takes the man’s half-stiff erection into his mouth where it swells and hardens more. He sucks tentatively, breathing through his nose. The thatch of hair between the man’s legs smells familiar, like herbs and forest earth, like he’s a tree that has grown up out of the ground. Breathing deep, Dean sucks him harder.

The sound of pleasure the man makes sends a wave of heat and aching need through Dean’s body. His own erection grows heavy and hard between his legs. He desperately wants to be touched and feels like he’s already veering toward the edge of orgasm, the anticipation of it building in his groin the more he sucks. His mouth is so full of that hot, heavy weight and his jaw aches slightly. The man wraps his hands around Dean’s head and holds it gently like it’s something very precious, thrusting slightly, saying quiet, whispering things in a language Dean doesn’t understand but knows are words of love.

Dean’s orgasm feels like it starts in his full mouth, ripples down his neck and chest and starts cresting when it reaches his groin—then he feels the earth suddenly open up beneath him and he starts falling down, down, down. 

He wakes up sweating and aching, his erection in his hand. He’s vaguely aware from the tension in Sam’s body behind him that he’s awake, but he's too dazed, too aroused, too far gone to stop himself. One hard stroke and he’s groaning and coming in his hand.

Sam’s gasp is loud in the silent room. Dean’s heart feels like it’s thundering in his chest. He can hear Sam’s breathing above the sound of his own, and in the small of his back he can feel that Sam’s hard.

Sam rolls onto his back and Dean feels his hand jerking under the covers. Realizing what he’s doing, Dean lies there, frozen, waiting. Sam’s breath climbs higher, then he moans softly and lies still.

Dean's not sure what to do. He takes a steadying breath and reaches out for his shirt lying on the floor next to the bed, wipes himself clean and silently passes it to Sam. Sam uses it and throws it back on the floor. Turning away from Dean and facing the wall, his voice soft, he says, “It’s okay, Dean. Everybody does it.”

 _Not like that_ , Dean thinks, but grunts a sound of agreement. He listens to Sam breathe until he finally falls asleep. 

The next day he moves his things into his father’s room and ignores the way Sam watches him with knowing eyes.

Spring turns into summer and then into fall. The days grow shorter and the nights get cooler. There’s frost in the grass in the morning, the spiderwebs glistening with tiny crystals in the early light.

They grieve for their father silently. He's been gone for over two years and they’ve had no news of him for months. Both of them accept that he must be dead.

 _It’s just us now, Dean. Just me and you and Sammy,_ Dean hears his father saying to him. It’s an echo of a memory from long ago. Now it’s just him and Sam.

Things have changed subtly between them. They don't sleep in the same bed anymore, even on cold nights, and Sam has stopped telling Dean he loves him whenever Dean leaves a room or just goes outside to do his chores, as if Dean might forget in the brief time they're apart.

Sam suddenly grows tall and so strong, filling into the shape of a young man. He becomes quieter, more thoughtful. Sometimes Dean looks at him and has no idea what he’s thinking. It was never like that before. 

“What are you thinking about?”

Sam stops stirring the soup in his bowl, leans back in his chair and looks at Dean across the kitchen table. “A man arrived in the village today. His name’s Brother Caleb.”

“A priest?” Dean asks.

“Sort of. Not really. He doesn’t talk like a priest but he was talking about God.”

“In the church?”

“No, he was sitting under that big oak tree in the middle of the village.” Sam stirs his soup contemplatively. “He was talking about how God doesn’t live in the church, that he lives in nature and in people.”

“Doesn’t sound like any priest I ever heard. It’s all _Thou shalt not_ and fire and brimstone if _Thou do_ with most of them.”

“Brother Caleb says rules are not inscribed in books but in the hearts of good men and women.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like heretical talk to me. Is he just travelling through?”

“He said he’s planning to stay for a while. You should go listen to him talk.” Sam stands up. “I’ll wash the dishes. Did you bring the horses in?”

Dean nods.

The next afternoon Dean goes down to the village. There’s a group of about fifteen people sitting under the huge old oak tree that stands in the center of the village. They’re sitting on the ground around a man who’s talking to them. Most of them are young villagers, at least half of them are girls, and when Dean gets closer, he can see why.

The man at the center of the group is striking looking. His hair is cropped very short, throwing into relief the sharp, straight planes and edges of his cheekbones and jawline. He has the palest blue eyes Dean has ever seen. It’s hard to tell his age. Older than Dean but younger than Dean’s father when he left them two years ago. The lean definition of his face and serene expression remind Dean of the paintings in the church of prophets. He exudes calm confidence and speaks in a warm, deep voice. There’s something magnetic about him. He looks up at Dean and smiles like he knows exactly who Dean is, then continues talking.

Dean stands at the edge of the group and listens, skeptical and prepared to dislike what this unnecessarily attractive man has to say.

It’s difficult to stay resistant to what he’s saying, though. He’s talking about how it’s the responsibility of the village community to take care of each other, to not squabble or judge one another or enter into disputes. He talks about the harmony of nature, how it should be reflected in human society. He talks about openness and tolerance, about the fellowship of humankind. His words spin a web around them, holding them glued to him, entranced and unconscious of anything else. 

When he finishes, Dean turns to leave, but hears his name being called. From the center of the group, the man says, “Will you wait for me, Dean? I’d like to talk to you.” Surprised, Dean nods his head and watches him shake the hands of the people who were gathered to hear him speak.

When he’s done, he walks over to Dean, his smile lighting up the tanned brown of his face. He stretches out a hand, “I’m Caleb. Sam told me about you when we talked together yesterday. It’s good to meet you, Dean. Your brother speaks very highly of you.” His hand is warm and calloused, his grip firm.

“How did you know who I was?” Dean asks.

Caleb suppresses a smile. “Sam said you’d be the really handsome one scowling at the back.” 

Dean gives a short laugh. “I wasn’t scowling.”

“Well, maybe just frowning a little.” Caleb smiles and scans Dean’s face. “The other part was true though.”

Dean feels a little flutter in his stomach and lets go of Caleb’s hand.

“Should we walk and talk,” Caleb asks and gestures with his hand.

Dean nods and they head toward the path up the hill that leads home. The air is cool and there’s a breeze playing through the trees. “Sam says your father has been gone a long time. He went on a hunting trip and didn’t come back?”

Dean nods curtly. He’s not about to discuss his father with a stranger.

“Sam’s taking his absence hard.”

Irritation starts a low hum under Dean’s skin. “We cope,” he says shortly.

Caleb stops and faces him. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude. You think I’m being meddlesome, but I’m not, just sympathetic. My father was killed when I was very young.”

It’s hard for Dean to stay irritated under those calm blue eyes. “We don’t know he’s dead. We just haven’t had word from him.”

“So you don’t know, either way, and that’s even harder because it’s the not knowing that makes it more painful and confusing.”

“We cope,” Dean says again.

Caleb half smiles and continues walking. “Yes, you do. You’re obviously strong, both of you. An inheritance from your father, I imagine. Strength is a quality to be admired in a man, but it’s a burden too because it’s difficult to be kind and gentle when you’re having to be strong all the time. Your mother died when you were a child?”

Dean steps in front of him and asks coldly. “What do you want, Caleb?”

Caleb doesn’t step back or look away. “I don’t want anything from you, Dean.”

“Why are you asking all these questions? What do you want from us?”

Caleb’s lips twitch. “He was right about you. Perceptive, direct and very guarded.”

Dean clenches his jaw. “Who?”

“We were going in the same direction and shared the journey together for a while. He talked about you and Sam. Then my journey brought me here.”

“My father?” Dean asks in surprise.

Caleb nods.

“When was this?” Dean demands.

“A month ago.”

“Where was he going? Do you know if he’s still alive?

“I haven’t heard any news of him since we parted. But yes, I believe he’s still alive.”

Dean notices how he doesn’t answer the first question. “Where?”

“In the black hill country further north.”

“Was he—is he well?”

Caleb looks at him with quiet sympathy. “Physically, he was strong and healthy. He’s a man of great strength and resilience.”

Dean takes a deep breath and runs a shaky hand through his hair.

“It’s not a good idea to go looking for him, Dean. It’s dangerous and he wouldn’t want that. Your place is here with your brother. He needs you.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “How did you know I was thinking about looking for him?”

Caleb smiles. “It’s what I did when my own father disappeared. I had no emotional ties keeping me at home.”

Dean asks, “Did you tell Sam? Does he know?”

“No, I didn’t. And maybe it’s better he doesn’t know. Sam thinks your father’s dead. If he knows differently, he will want to find him. I sense Sam has a reckless stubbornness in his nature, a characteristic more tempered in you by your protective loyalty toward Sam. It’s safer for your brother here at home. I didn’t want to tell you either.

Dean looks at Caleb closely. "Then why did you tell me?"

"I think you feel the pain of your father’s absence more intensely. In your position, I would have wanted to know my father was alive, even if it caused me pain to realize he didn’t want me to know. John would not be happy I was having this conversation with you. I don’t think he means to come back to you. His life is elsewhere now.” 

Caleb pauses when Dean grimaces. “I don’t mean to cause you more pain, Dean, but it’s better for you to know and accept things as they are. Your father is a man with an iron will. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, though. Take some comfort in that.”

Dean snorts and stares at the ground, his jaw clenched hard. “Forgive me if I don’t.”

He raises his eyes and the bitter anger inside him subsides a little at the sympathy in Caleb's expressions. “But thank you for not keeping the truth from me. I appreciate what you’ve said. And the message you preach to people is a good message, Caleb. I was struck by the things you said earlier. I think you should be careful, though. In the wrong place with the wrong people, you could be viewed as a heretic.” Dean pauses, wavering over what he wants to say next. “Would you like to eat with us tonight? It’ll be a simple meal. We're not good at cooking. But you’re welcome in our house.”

Caleb’s smile is bright, his teeth white against the tanned brown of his face. He’s obviously a man who’s spent time outdoors in hotter climes. His eyes are startlingly pale, like the sky on a warm still day in the summer.

“I know some people see heresy in my message. I’ve experienced resistance to it, but the message must be shared. I’m an instrument of something greater than me. And thank you, Dean, I’d like to eat with you and Sam very much. I’m used to eating simply and my life as a traveler means I’m often dependent on the hospitality of the people I meet. I forget to eat enough sometimes.”

Dean looks at the sharp cut of his cheekbones and the lean shape of his body. “You do look like you should eat more.” His eyes travel over Caleb's body. There’s strength in the width of his shoulders and the shape of his arms visible through the thin, worn fabric of his shirt.

Dean realizes he’s staring and quickly looks away, embarrassed. Lately, he’s become more aware of his physical responses to the bodies of men as well as women. It’s something that causes him shame. Even Sam’s body, grown so lean and strong in recent months evokes a powerful physical response in him. Dean has to avert his eyes when Sam's naked.

He knows Sam feels the same way. Only Sam doesn’t look away.

It’s unnatural, this thing between them, but maybe an inevitable consequence of the intensity of their feelings for each other. Deprived of love, they are each other’s only object of those feelings. It’s made them jealous and possessive of one another. Since Anna, Dean hasn’t tried to pursue a physical relationship with anybody else. It makes him feel frustrated and lonely. He tries to find relief in his own hand too often, but it only blunts the edges of the growing frustration within him. 

Caleb asks in a quiet voice, “Should we walk on?” He smiles when Dean meets his eyes and looks back at him with a knowing expression, but one without judgement. There’s something uncanny about the way he appears able to read a man’s heart from the closed text of his face.

Dean blushes and nods. They walk on in silence.

Sam is preparing meat and vegetables for their supper and looks up at them with surprise when they walk into the kitchen.

“I invited Caleb to eat with us.”

“Please sit down,” Sam says eagerly. “Would you like some beer, or there’s apple cider?”

Caleb shakes his head. “No, thank you, Sam. I don’t drink alcohol. I find it confuses my thinking.”

Sam smirks and says, “That must be why Dean’s so confused all the time.”

Dean snorts and returns Sam's challenging smile. “Drunk is the only way I can make any sense of your conversation, Sam.” In a dry voice, he says to Caleb, “My brother thinks he’s a philosopher.”

Sam huffs a short laugh. “Thinking too hard gives Dean a headache. His philosophy is you have to keep your head down and your eyes on the ground. He believes people who think too much have their heads in the clouds. If he wasn’t my brother, I might say he was stubborn and unimaginative, a lot like that bull plodding in the back paddock.”

“It’s just common sense to watch where you’re going, Sam. Maybe you wouldn’t have walked into so many trees when you were little if you’d just watched where you were going, instead of looking at butterflies or listening to birdsong or whatever else was distracting you.”

“At least I didn’t fall into the cesspit after drinking for hours around the fire with all the old men of the village.”

Caleb laughs, his eyes following the teasing back and forth between them. “The differences between us keep us fascinated by each other. The world needs philosophers and pragmatists. And there’s a place in the world for intoxication too. People have always used intoxicants for pleasure and for religious purposes. In China alcohol is called the water of history.”

“How do you know that?” Sam asks.

“I’ve been to the far East.”

Sam and Dean stare at him with round eyes.

“When I was sixteen, I stowed on-board a ship that was carrying lumber to Europe. I learned how to be a seaman and sailed from Holland to the East. But it wasn’t the life for me and so I returned home.”

Later, as they eat, Caleb tells them of his travels. Tales of such strange and faraway places that Sam and Dean stare at him in amazement. Dean knows Sam’s feeling the same itch he is. Their roots have grown very shallow in this place. A life of travel and adventure beckons to them both.

“He’s fascinating,” Sam says after Caleb leaves later that night.

“Yes,” Dean agrees, clearing the table.

“Do you think—”

“What?” Dean asks, turning from the washing up when Sam doesn’t finish his sentence.

Sam’s expression is pensive. “Do you think he’s good-looking?”

Dean snorts and returns to washing dishes. “I told you, Sam. I like fillies. I don’t notice the good looks of men.” He doesn’t feel guilt at the lie. Unlike the shame he feels at choosing not to tell Sam their father is alive. The omission of that truth sits in his belly like a heavy stone.

 _He’ll never forgive me for not telling him,_ Dean thinks to himself.

Needing further vindication for his decision, Dean goes looking for Caleb the next afternoon, but no-one in the village has seen him all day. Finally, a shepherd on a hillside points Dean in the direction of a path into the forest.

Dean is a good tracker—his father taught him from the time he was old enough to walk—and picks up Caleb’s trail when the path starts to wind to the south. He can see where Caleb left the path and made his own way north, further into the forest where it grows thick and dark.

A half an hour’s hike through the thick forest eventually brings Dean to a clearing between the trees.

His mouth goes dry when he sees that Caleb is at the center of the clearing facing a big black wolf. His back is toward Dean and he's standing very still. The wolf is enormous and angry, its teeth bared in a wet, dripping snarl.

There's a moment of silent anticipation and the muscles in Dean's thighs tighten. The wolf rears up on its hind legs and shifts its center of gravity. It stretches its forelegs and Dean sees they’re actually furred muscular arms. At the end of its huge animal hands are long claws. He's shocked to notice what are clearly the eyes of a man looking out from the eye sockets of the snarling beast.

He’s about to call out a warning when Caleb swings a long silver weapon above his head, a sword he’d been holding in front of him where Dean couldn’t see it. He says something to the wolf that Dean doesn’t hear. The wolf-man lunges forward and Caleb neatly side-steps it. He twists his body, leaps into the air and kicks the wolf hard in the back. It staggers forward, grunting.

Dean watches breathlessly. He’s never seen a man fight in that way.

Caleb has his sword in both hands held above his right shoulder. Growling, the wolf turns and faces him again. Caleb makes a running start, gains forward momentum, leaps in the air and kicks the wolf with both feet square in the chest. The beast falls, and as it tries to get up, Caleb swings the sword in a wide arc and cuts clean through its neck, severing its head from its shoulders. 

Dean’s mouth is hanging open in astonishment. His teeth click together when he suddenly shuts it. Caleb looks across the clearing at him. He doesn’t look surprised. “Hello Dean.” He's barely out of breath.

Dean looks back at the dead wolf and instead sees the naked body of a thick-set man lying on the forest floor. His head is next to him staring unseeingly at the sky.

Dean states the obvious. “You killed him.”

“Yes, I did.” Caleb replies evenly. “He attacked a shepherd in the hills and ate the flesh off his bones. The shepherd’s wife and children have to fend for themselves now. I don't feel any regret for ending his life."

Dean swallows hard.

“Will you help me to bury him?”

Dean tears his eyes away from the dead man and nods.

Caleb goes over to a leather bag under a tree, lays his sword on the ground and takes out a shovel. He notices Dean admiring the sharp glint of the sword’s blade in the light and the ornately carved handle and says, “It was made for me in China.”

In a hushed voice, Dean asks, “Who are you, Caleb?”

“I hunt monsters, Dean. As my father did before me and his father before him. Both were killed fighting evil. And that fate will probably be mine one day too.”

“But you’re a preacher.”

Caleb smiles. “The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“My dad lives like this now? Hunting monsters? That’s how you met him?”

Caleb nods. “Once you’ve looked into the face of evil, you can’t turn your back on it again.”

Caleb starts digging a hole under the tree. Dean takes over when he tires. When the hole is about six feet deep, they dump the body and head in it and fill it back up with soil again.

Caleb crosses himself and says something that sounds like a prayer in a foreign language over the mound of earth, then says in English, “May your soul be at peace in the afterlife, my brother. And may you find forgiveness for what you have done.”

Surprised at the gentle sympathy of his words and tone, Dean asks, “Why don’t you hate him? He killed an innocent man. He tried to kill you.”

Caleb looks at him with those calm blue eyes. “He was once human. He was bitten by another wolf and turned into a monster. He’s not responsible for that. It could happen to you or to me. My father taught me that tolerance and empathy are important when you live this life, otherwise we become too hardened, too vengeful.”

Dean frowns, thinking about the implications of that. “So you don’t hate the creature that murdered your father? And I shouldn’t hate the one that killed my mother?”

Caleb’s jaw hardens. “Oh you should definitely hate the monster that killed your mother, Dean. Azazel is a devil who can wear the skin of a man and the fur of a wolf, but he’s neither. He’s a creature born out of darkness. One of his kind killed my father, and I hate that evil, unclean monster with everything I have inside me.”

Dean steps back from the fierce emotion in his voice. Caleb looks at him steadily, not hiding the violent blue fire burning in his eyes.

“Can they be killed?”

“Yes. In a way. They can be returned to the underworld.”

“How?”

Caleb smiles. “Why do you want knowledge you have no need for? This is not the life for you, Dean. Your place is here.”

“What if I did need that knowledge? What if the devil came back?”

Caleb looks out at the forest. “The village is warded against demons. Your father returned a long time ago, once he’d learned how to do it, and carved sigils into the most ancient trees, those that already carry warding power within them. You and Sam are safe here.”

“He came back and didn’t see us?” Dean asks in a hurt tone.

Caleb grips the back of Dean’s neck and pulls him forward, his expression filled with deep sympathy. “I’m sorry, Dean. But he’s lost to you. You need to understand that. He might as well be dead.”

Dean pulls away. “Teach me. Teach me how to fight like that, how to defend myself and protect my brother. Teach me how to kill them.”

Caleb sighs. “I’m not your father, Dean.”

“No,” Dean says coldly. “I have a father and one is more than enough. I want you to be my teacher.”

Caleb sighs again and picks up his sword. He slides it into a leather scabbard, then packs the shovel and sword in his big shoulder bag.

“Something will come again and if you leave me defenseless like this, you condemn me and Sam to death. Our deaths will be on your conscience. I’m a quick learner, Caleb.”

Caleb stares at the ground in contemplation, the bag slung over his shoulder. He turns and stares at Dean silently. “You’re right. Something will come again. If not Azazel, then another. Sam is a beacon.”

Dean stiffens in surprise. “You know about Sam?”

Caleb nods. “He’s why I came here.”

“To kill him?” Dean asks fiercely. When Caleb doesn't answer, he says accusingly, “You sat at our kitchen table with us.”

Caleb looks at him steadily. “I came here willing to do what your father and you were unable to do, if that was required of me. Sam has a dark power inside him.”

“Sam’s not evil. He’s good and innocent, and he has it under control. Like you said, he’s not responsible for something that wasn’t his choice.”

Caleb smiles at the way Dean uses his own words against him.

“And, Caleb, you need to know. I will not allow anything or anybody to hurt Sam. I’ll die protecting him. And I’ll kill too.”

Caleb smiles. “I believe you. You have a bold and resolute heart. Sam does too. That’s why I’m willing to walk away from here and leave the two of you alone.”

“Teach me, Caleb, before you go how to keep my brother safe from anything that might come looking for him.”

Caleb stares at him for a long time, his eyes searching Dean’s face. Dean looks back as steadily as he can. Eventually, Caleb nods and Dean lets out a deep sigh of relief.

“This is how it will be, Dean. One month. You will meet me here in this clearing every afternoon at the same hour for one month. You will not be late and you will do everything I tell you.”

Dean smiles and nods in agreement.

***

Sam is alone in the woods. He’s sitting with his back against a tree and a book on his knee, but he’s not reading. His thoughts distract him from the mystical text about self-discipline and the contemplative life. He’s thinking about Dean. When is he ever not thinking about Dean. Thoughts of his brother intrude on his mind constantly.

He’s worrying about the growing distance between them. It started the night Dean woke from that dream, sweating and aroused, making choking noises of pleasure. Thinking about it now makes Sam go hot all over. He couldn’t help his response. He shouldn’t have used his hand on himself with Dean lying right there beside him. Dean had probably been dreaming about being with a girl, probably Anna with her pretty eyes and soft female curves. He wasn’t dreaming about hard male hands on his body.

Not like Sam, who wished it was Dean’s strong, calloused hand on him and not his own. He fantasizes constantly about what that would feel like. It’s a sickness inside him, this feverish desire to touch Dean, to feel Dean’s hands on his naked body, to kiss him, to slide his erection between Dean’s full lips, to orgasm inside his brother’s beautiful mouth. 

Sam shakes himself free of those thoughts and takes a few deep, steadying breaths.

He feels like he’s barely seen Dean the last two weeks. He’s been getting up before dawn to start on his chores, then disappears for hours in the afternoon. Yesterday, Sam followed him into the woods but Dean knows how to cover his tracks and Sam lost him in an area of the forest that was thick and overgrown. Sam’s never been as good a tracker and hunter as Dean. He knows it was a disappointment to his father. Another one. How often did Sam look at his father and sense deep feelings of disappointment and uneasiness, and sometimes even fear. He could sense love too, but a love that felt more like pain.

A butterfly flutters down in front of him. Sam watches the graceful movement of its brightly colored wings. Distracted by his feelings of hurt and anger, he sends his thoughts into the butterfly, feeling with his mind the delicate connection between wing and body. It suddenly stutters in mid-air, its wings breaking off and floating down slower than the heavier body that drops on Sam’s outstretched leg.

“Oh no!” he exclaims, scooping the writhing, wingless body into the palm of his hand. He picks up the delicate, powdery wings and tries to will them into re-attaching, but he can’t do it. “I’m sorry,” he says to the suffering creature twisting in his hand. This is all his power is good for. All it does is hurt and destroy. Tears squeeze out of his eyes.

Sam hears a soft footfall. A beautiful girl in a dress the color of bright green moss steps out from behind a tree. She comes toward Sam, kneels before him and takes the dying butterfly out of his hand. She blows on it gently and iridescent new wings push out of its body.

They watch it fly away into the treetops above them. “How did you do that?” Sam asks in awe.

The girl leans forward and places a hand on his chest. “It comes from here.” She places her other hand on Sam’s forehead, her hand cool against his hot skin. “And from here. You have it too. But you don’t use it, so it’s grown small and weak inside you.”

She sits in front of Sam cross-legged. Her eyes are almost as dark as her hair, like soft black velvet, like a starless sky at midnight. “Why are you so afraid of it, Sam?”

Sam shifts back a little. “How do you know who I am?”

“I sense you down there in the village, so confused and alone, so afraid of who you are.”

“Do you live here in the woods?”

“Yes, with my mother. Our cottage is just over there in a glen near a waterfall.”

“Are you a witch?”

The girl laughs - a tinkling, bell-like sound of amusement. “Are you?”

Sam frowns. “No.”

“That’s just a name, one of the many they use to try and define those of us who are different to them.” She turns and looks toward the village in the valley below them. “Because they’re ignorant and afraid.” She turns back and scans Sam’s face. “You’re not like them. You hide among them, but if they knew what you were, they would hurt you. That’s what they do. They destroy what they don’t understand. My mother taught me that.”

Sam remembers Dean’s threat: _If anybody finds out what you can do, they’ll drown you in the river or burn you alive at the stake or stone you to death in the middle of the village._

“You’ll never be one of them, no matter how hard you try and pretend. That’s why you’re so lonely. I’ve felt your loneliness when it travels in the wind. It makes me feel so sad. Poor, beautiful, lonely, sad boy.”

Embarrassed by her pity, Sam says, “I’m not a boy. I’m almost seventeen-years-old. That makes me a man. And I’m not alone. I have a brother who loves me.”

She raise an eyebrow and half-smiles. “And where is your brother, Sam? Do you know? Why does he keep so many secrets from you? He may love you but he doesn’t trust you.”

The truth of that pierces Sam’s heart. Recently he’s sensed that Dean is keeping something from him, something very important. He can almost smell the deceit coming off him. He’s thought about delving into Dean’s mind to try and find that hidden secret, but he’d promised not to. He’d promised Dean he could trust him. But what is that promise worth if Dean just lies to him?

“I trust you, Sam. Let me show you where I live. The waterfall is so beautiful and I baked an apple pie this morning. Are you hungry?”

Sam bites his lip in indecision.

“It will just be you and me. My mother is—well, she’s not at home. She’s been away for some time and I’m so lonely without her. Will you keep me company just for an hour or so? I trust you enough to show you where I live. Won’t you trust me enough to come with me? I’m not afraid of you and you shouldn’t be afraid of me. We’re the same, you and I. My name’s Ruby. I’m no threat to you.”

Sam nods his head. Ruby’s smile is radiant. She gets to her feet and gives Sam a hand up. They pat the grass and twigs off their clothes.

Ruby talks happily as they walk, pointing out the herbs and plants that have medicinal properties and explaining how they can be used to soothe a wide range of ailments. Sam is impressed by her knowledge of the forest.

The cottage is nestled in a sunlit glen next to a small waterfall. Smoke curls out of the chimney and a goat is tethered to the open grass to the side of the house. A stripy cat sits on the doorstep sunning itself. Inside, the cottage is warm and cozy. A brace of rabbits hangs over a hook in the corner and a songbird sings in a roughly-made wooden cage. A pie sits on the windowsill, filling the room with the rich scent of apples and cinnamon. Sam’s mouth waters.

“Tea?” Ruby asks, holding a copper kettle in her hand.

Sam nods.

Ruby glances at the wood already stacked in the fireplace and it sets alight by itself, burning brightly. She turns and gives Sam a teasing pout. Sam returns the smile, looks at the burning logs, focuses his mind and makes the flames die down and disappear, leaving not even a wisp of smoke.

Ruby laughs in delight. “Your gift is so strong. It took me ages to learn that trick. But if you want some tea, you’re going to have to relight it.”

Sam looks at the logs and feels his power shifting and moving as it finds and re-connects long dormant lines of communication in his mind, connections that he pictures as sparkling, crackling bridges of light.

In a sudden whoosh the logs burst into huge flames. Sam reaches forward and grabs Ruby’s hand, pulling her away from the fire to stop her dress from catching alight. “I’m sorry! Are you alright?” he asks in concern.

Breathless and wide-eyed, Ruby faces him. “Don’t be sorry, Sam,” she whispers in awe, holding his hand firmly. “Your power’s beautiful. Just think what you could do with it.”

Sam lets go of her hand. “It’s dangerous. I can’t always control it, especially if I’m upset or angry. I don’t have your precision or creativity. I can’t do what you did with the butterfly.”

Ruby reaches up and cradles his cheek. “That’s because you haven’t been trained. You haven’t been as lucky as I was to have a mother who nurtured and encouraged my gift. She taught me never to feel ashamed of what I can do.”

Sam turns away from her. “All I’ve ever felt is shame.”

Ruby strokes his back. “Not anymore, Sam. Not with me. Let me help you. I can teach you.”

Sam ignores a warning voice in his head and images of Dean’s face when he’s angry or disappointed. He turns to face Ruby. “Yes,” he says, feeling as if he’s stepping across a threshold into a whole new world of exciting, dangerous possibility.

***

“You need to concentrate, Dean! Overcoming your opponent is about watching their every move, anticipating what they will do next. That’s the difference between living and dying.”

“Sorry,” Dean says and lets Caleb give him a hand up. He rubs his shoulder. He’s starting to get used to the cuts and bruises from Caleb’s training. Caleb never holds back. He trains Dean hard and treats him with firm, unwavering discipline. Dean can feel his body changing, growing stronger, his instincts sharper and quicker. The other night Sam reached for a bowl high up on a shelf. It toppled and Dean just reached out and caught it in mid-air without even looking at it. Sam had been wide-eyed with surprise and admiration.

Caleb goes over to his leather bag, takes out a water-jar and has a long drink. He’s shirtless and his muscles flex as he moves. The light is dappled on his smooth, tanned skin and glints in his closely-cropped blond hair. Dean feels a flutter in his stomach and a tightening in his groin. Caleb lowers the water-jar and turns to give Dean a knowing glance. “Don’t look at me like that, Dean.”

Dean blushes. It’s not the first time he’s thought Caleb must have eyes in the back of his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Caleb says patiently and hands Dean the water-jar.

Dean avoids his eyes and takes a deep swallow of the cool water. Keeping his face averted, he says in a quiet voice, “You think I’m disgusting.”

Caleb’s bark of laughter is a surprise. He’s smiling when Dean meets his eyes. “No, Dean, I really don't think you’re disgusting. I think you’re beautiful and strong and noble.” His eyes run over Dean’s naked chest. “Desire is not a sin.”

The heat in his eyes makes Dean unconsciously reach out and place his hand over Caleb’s heart. Caleb closes his eyes and covers Dean’s hand with his, holding it there for a moment, then he opens his eyes and pushes Dean’s hand away. “But it can’t be like that for us. For one thing," he says, with a laugh, "I really don’t want John Winchester angry at me for taking his son’s virginity. Your father would flay me alive.”

“My father’s not here and I’m a grown man. I don’t need his permission.”

Caleb smiles. “No, you don’t need anybody’s permission and you shouldn’t feel shame either. Desire for another man is not shameful. Don’t listen to what ignorant people might tell you. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Then why can’t it be like that for us?” Dean reaches out his hand again, but Caleb steps back.

“I’m celibate, Dean. Sex is a distraction. I live the way I do with no distractions because that kind of self-discipline is what keeps me focused. It’s how I choose to live my life. It might not make sense to you but it’s what keeps me fighting and alive.”

“It sounds very lonely.”

“It is.”

Dean presses the cork back into the water-jar and lays it on the grass. He asks quietly, “Have you never loved another person? Another man.”

“Yes, once, but he was killed in front of me and I will never endure that kind of pain again.”

Dean frowns. “Isn’t it worth it?”

“Yes, maybe it is, but you’re not in love with me, Dean. What you want is to fuck me.”

Dean laughs. He’s never heard Caleb curse before. “You’re too old for me anyway,” he says with a teasing grin.

Caleb raises his eyebrows. “I can still run circles around you, pretty boy.”

Dean smirks and feints a move to reach for the water-jar again, but instead grabs Caleb’s ankles and jerks. Caught unaware, Caleb falls on his back and Dean leaps lightning-fast on top of him, twisting Caleb’s arms above his head. He crows in victory at Caleb’s surprised expression.

Caleb leans his head back and laughs loudly, then throws Dean off him. He gets to his feet and helps Dean up. “You’re right about being a quick learner. I’ve taught you everything I know, Dean, and our month is almost over. Soon it will be time for me to move on.”

Dean smiles sadly at him. “You’re wrong, you know. I do love you. Not in that way, but maybe like a brother. I’ll miss you.”

Caleb gives him a long look. “A brother you desire?”

Dean looks away.

“It’s unwise, Dean, to give in to—"

“No,” Dean says firmly. “Not with this. I don’t need your advice or your condemnation with this.”

Caleb nods and gives him an understanding smile. “No, you don’t. Follow your own heart. That’s the only guidance you need. And I thought you knew me better than that. It’s not condemnation that I feel, only concern. I've grown really fond of you, Dean. Family doesn't begin or end with blood.”

Caleb pulls him into a hug and Dean suddenly misses his father so deeply, he experiences it as a terrible ache in his chest.

Pulling back, Caleb pats Dean’s cheek. “You’re ready, Dean, for whatever comes your way.”

***

Sam holds his hand up, concentrating on trying to channel the energy from his mind down his arm and into his hand and then out into the world. The tree in front of him groans and vibrates.

“Concentrate. You can do it,” Ruby encourages him.

Sam can feel blood dripping from his nose. He closes his eyes and sees the tree inside his mind. It’s the same height as he is. He picks up an imaginary axe and cleaves it down the middle, splitting it in two. The real tree in front of him begins to split and Sam turns his face away, covering his eyes when bark and sharp splinters shatter from it. He doesn’t see how glowing sigils carved into it suddenly appear, flare for a moment with bright white light, and then die away.

But Ruby sees it and a small smile lifts the corners of her mouth as the great fir tree splits in half and crashes to the forest floor.

Sam opens his eyes and grimaces with pain. His chest and arms are embedded with splinters. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. It’s covered in blood. Explosions of white light burst in front of his eyes and he sinks to his knees. Ruby appears at his side and puts an arm over his shoulders. She helps him to his feet and leads him to a stream where she bathes his face and chest with cold water, then dries him with the hem of her dress.

“You’re growing so strong, Sam.”

Sam lies on his back on the grassy bank next to the stream and stares up at the sky. It’s a calm, clear day and the sky is a cloudless blue. Ruby lies next to him, her head beside his. She holds his hand. “Soon nothing will be able to stop you,” she whispers.

He thinks there’s something wrong with her words but Sam’s too tired to figure out what. He closes his eyes and falls into a deep sleep.

When he wakes up, he notices that Ruby is staring into the trees, an expression of such sadness on her face that he wonders at it. She turns and looks at him. Her smile transforms her face. “Do you feel better?”

Sam sits up gingerly. He aches all over. He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain his cuts and bruises to Dean. He twitches the muscles of his face and clumps of mud and herbs fall onto his lap.

“To help you heal,” Ruby explains. She spits on the hem of her dress and wipes his face and chest. “There, hardly a scratch on you. Just as pretty as you were this morning,” she says with a smile. 

If he were a normal boy, this is the moment he would kiss her. Sam looks at the soft, red shape of her mouth and wonders what Dean would be thinking in this moment if he were here instead.

“Can I show you something? It’s something important.”

Sam nods, struck again by her sad expression.

They cross the stream where it's shallow and the rocks are not too slippery. Ruby leads him into the woods, holding his hand firmly. They walk for what feels like a long time, Ruby humming a song that sounds exactly like the one the caged songbird in her kitchen sings. The woods grow thicker and darker. Finally, they reach a clearing. In the center of it is the biggest tree Sam has ever seen. Its bark is so dark it appears black in the gloomy light. Nothing grows around it and there are no birds in its branches. Sam walks around it, astounded by its width and height.

Ruby follows him, watching him closely.

“It’s so big,” Sam says with wide eyes.

Ruby nods sadly. “It’s a prison.” She steps up to it and throws her arms around it. She looks so small and vulnerable against its overwhelming size. She’s crying when she turns around. “My mother’s trapped inside it.”

Sam steps back, confused and suddenly afraid. Ruby rushes over to him and grips both his hands. “Please, Sam, you have to help me. I’m so alone without her.”

“I—I can’t,” Sam stutters looking up at the tree’s towering solidity. “It’s too big. It’s impossible.”

“We can,” Ruby says urgently. “We can do it together. Your power combined with mine. We can free her, Sam.”

Sam untangles their hands and steps back a few more paces. “How did she get in there?”

“They hate us, Sam. They’re afraid of us and they don’t understand us. She did nothing wrong. Her power frightened them and they punished her for their own small-minded fear.”

“She must have done something.”

Ruby bites her teeth and flares her nostrils. “Don’t think for a second they wouldn’t do the same thing to you. Even that lying brother of yours. He’d betray you in a heartbeat if he knew what you’ve been doing with me.”

Sam centers his eyes on her. “Don’t talk about Dean like that. He would never do anything to hurt me. Not ever.”

Ruby’s expression softens. “I know. I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to say that. At least you have a brother. Somebody who loves you. I have no-one. All we want is to live alone in the woods. We don’t want to hurt them, even though they hate us. Please, Sam. Please help me. You know what it’s like to have your parents taken from you. I need your help.”

Her desperate grief is such an awful thing that Sam’s heart surges with feeling. He looks back up at the towering tree and his power shifts and stirs inside him. It’s ego more than anything else that prompts his decision to say yes. He doesn’t know it in that moment, but later, when his mind is clearer and his heart more honest, he recognizes it for what it is. Pure ego. The desire to impose his will and power on something that felt beyond him as he stood before it.

“It’s so big,” he says in awe.

Ruby stands next to him and holds his hand. “Yes, it is.”

That night he can feel Dean’s eyes on him as they eat supper together at the kitchen table.

“Have you been sleeping? You have really dark rings around your eyes.”

Sam looks up at him. “Maybe I’d sleep better if you were next to me instead of hiding in Dad’s room.” 

Dean raises his eyebrows. “I’m not hiding.”

Sam holds his gaze. “Aren’t you?”

Dean looks away. “Do you want more bread?”

Sam huffs a laugh. “No, Dean. Bread is not what I want.”

“Then what do you want, Sam?” Dean asks him directly.

He shouldn’t be surprised at Dean rising to the challenge. It's in his brother's nature to confront things head-on. So many words rise up in Sam's throat to be voiced but he can’t get them out. When did it become this difficult for him to talk to Dean. Eventually he says, “I want to know how you got that bruise on your cheek.”

Dean shrugs. “I was chopping wood and…” he trails off.

Sam’s lips twist and he smiles grimly. “Why offer something you’re not actually willing to give.”

Dean stirs the food around in his bowl. “You know I love you more than anything else, right?”

Sam’s heart clenches, but for the first time in his life he realizes those words are not enough. “Yes, I know.” He gets up. “I know you cooked but do you mind clearing up and washing the dishes. I’m really tired.”

“Sure, Sam. Get some sleep.” 

Sam pauses in the doorway. “I love you more than anything else too.”

Dean looks up from his contemplation of his uneaten supper. “Yes, I know.”

***

Dean’s clearing out the stables the next morning when Caleb suddenly bangs open the barn door and demands, “Where is he?”

Dean rests the pitchfork in his hand against the stable wall. “Who?”

Caleb’s eyes are hard and focused. He’s vibrating with tension. “Where’s Sam, Dean?”

“Why?” Dean asks warily.

“Because three of the warding trees have fallen. They’ve been split in half as if struck by lightning.”

“Did you think maybe they _were_ just struck by lightning? Sounds like the logical assumption.”

Caleb clenches his jaw. “That wouldn’t happen. Something with great power intentionally broke the line of defense around the village. Any idea who has that kind of power?”

Dean’s heart starts beating faster in his chest. “Sam doesn’t use his power. Maybe it was something else.”

“Lying to yourself is the worst kind of deceit. You know he’s been up to something.”

Dean grimaces, because of course he knows. Despite this distance between them lately, he can always tell when there’s something going on with Sam.

“Sam’s been seen in the woods with a girl. ”

“What?”

“She’s a witch, Dean. She’s the daughter of a powerful sorceress who was imprisoned in an ancient tree somewhere in the woods near here. I think he’s helping her to free her mother. The warding trees were just training.”

“Fuck,” Dean exclaims and runs an angry hand through his hair. He doesn’t question it, just knows instantly that it’s true.

“We have to stop them. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sam’s about to unleash something he has no understanding of. Help me to find him.”

Dean gives Caleb a hard look. “I won’t let you hurt him. If it’s like you say it is, then this girl has manipulated him. Sam would never intentionally do something bad. He’s naïve. He’ll be doing it out of some kind of noble idea of helping her.” He turns away and hits the stable door with both hands, making the horses shift and stamp their hooves. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t been so distracted, this never would have happened. He needed me and I wasn’t there for him.”

Caleb places a steadying hand on Dean’s shoulder. “You can self flagellate and work out your issues with your brother later. You’re right about Sam’s naivete and noble instincts. Your father made a mistake leaving you alone and not giving Sam the guidance he needed. It’s too much for you to carry by yourself, young as you are. But Sam’s motivations are less important at this moment than what he is about to do. Do you know where the tree is? Did you ever come across it when you were hunting in the forest with your father?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, but I can find Sam anywhere.”

***

Sam feels as if he’s filled with fire. His body burns and flames lick at his mind. He can feel Ruby at his side, her power merging with his and bursting out from them in a concentrated flow of energy. The great and ancient tree shudders and creaks. Splits appear at its base and enormous roots erupt out of the earth.

Suddenly, something hits Sam from the side and he’s thrown to the ground, a heavy weight on top of him. It's Dean. “Look at me, Sam! Look at me!” he shouts, breathing heavily and his eyes wild.

Sam hears Ruby scream, turns his head and sees that Caleb has her clutched to his chest, a knife at her throat. He uses a short blast of energy to throw Dean off him, gets to his feet and uses another flare of energy to flick the knife out of Caleb’s hand. Pulling Ruby behind him, he says, “No, Caleb. I won’t allow you to hurt her.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Sam,” Caleb growls at him. Dean gets to his feet and stands next to Caleb. Sam looks at them steadily, holding Ruby behind him.

Silent tension mounts between them until a sudden loud crack splinters the air, followed by a booming sound that shudders the earth beneath their feet. Birds burst from the trees in a screeching chorus and a pair of deer thunder through the clearing and then away into the distance. A crack runs lightning fast up the center of the enormous tree, shattering bark and spilling out a bright white light from deep inside it. The light pours out and gathers into a bright sphere. At its center is the indistinct shape of a person.

Ruby breaks away from them and runs toward the sphere. At the last minute, she turns and smiles at Sam, holding her hand out to him. Dean grabs hold of Sam’s arm, anchoring him to his side. Sam shakes his head at Ruby. She smiles again and steps into the glowing sphere. It folds in on itself, burns like white fire for an instant, then disappears.

The sudden silence is deafening. The enormous tree towers over them, a deep fissure splitting its center. The color of its bark has changed, not black but a deep brown. The green of its leaves are suddenly bright. Birds begin singing above them.

Sam turns and gives Dean a wary look. He pulls his arm free and steps back from him.

"Where are they, Sam? Where would they go?" Caleb asks in a fierce, quiet voice.

Sam shrugs his shoulders. "Far away from here." 

“Do you even know what you've done, you misguided boy,” Caleb demands, shaking Sam's his shoulders. “Do you know what you’ve let loose on the world?”

“Do you, Caleb?” Sam replies in a steady voice. “Do you know for sure that she’s evil, that she intends harm to anyone. Or are you just afraid of her power?”

Caleb turns away from him in exasperation.

“Do you know the reason they imprisoned her?” Sam pushes. “Did she deserve it or were they just punishing her for being powerful?"

“No, I don’t know why they imprisoned her,” Caleb admits. “And yes, Sam, I accept that people act out of fear when they come into contact with something which is beyond their comprehension. I’ve experienced it myself. But the thing is, you don’t know either, and you might have just made a terrible, reckless mistake.”

“So are you going to judge and punish me now, Brother Caleb? Are you going to lock me away too, just in case.”

Caleb huffs in irritation. “I knew your family would be a problem for me the moment I met your father and he told me about the two of you. I should beat the hell out of you, Sam Winchester.”

“If anybody’s going to beat the hell out of my brother, Caleb, it’s going to be me.”

Dean steps in front of Sam, ignoring the way he flinches and just pulls him close and holds him until Sam’s arms wrap around him and they stand there breathing together. Dean holds on tight. He can't remember the last time he just held Sam like this. He hears Caleb saying, “I’m going to go over there somewhere. When you’re done with the brotherly love, can you let me know.”

Stepping back from Sam, Dean says quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?” Sam replies warily.

“No, it should be me. I’m sorry I’ve been so distant and distracted, and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t talk to me about this. I don't know if you did the right thing here, but I know that I can't control your decisions."

"No, Dean, you can't. And I can't keep pretending and feeling ashamed of what I am. This is me; this is who I am. My power is a part of me. I can't go back to how it was."

"I know. But can you please just talk to me before you go around doing completely insane things like freeing powerful sorceresses from trees." He steps back and clenches his jaw. “There's something else, Sam. Something I haven't told you. Dad's alive.” He's surprised when Sam's expression doesn't change.

“Ruby told me. She read the cards.”

Dean raises his eyebrows at the calmness of Sam's response. “Why aren’t you angry? I kept it from you. I lied to you.”

Sam smiles. “I know why you did it. You thought you were protecting me. It’s endearing and irritating. But maybe now you can accept that it’s destructive when you hide things from me. You’re stupid, but maybe now you can try to be less stupid.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Okay,” he says sarcastically, “I said I was sorry. What do you want me to do? Kneel before you and beg for forgiveness, almighty one? Because you know I’m not going to let you push me around just because you can throw me across a clearing with the power of your mind. I'm still the oldest. Oh, and that hurt, just by the way.” 

Sam steps closer and wraps his hand around Dean’s hip. “When you kneel in front of me, Dean, it won’t be to beg for forgiveness. It will be for another reason completely.” He pushes his hand under Dean’s shirt and rubs his thumb against the bone of Dean’s hip.

Dean flushes and his breath stutters.

“I love you. And you want me as much as I want you. And if we keep pretending that’s not how it is, we’ll just keep hurting each other. It's time to stop lying and hiding and pretending, about everything, including this.” Sam rubs the soft skin next to Dean's hipbone, heat in his eyes.

Desire, unchecked and intense, floods through Dean's body. It's a relief. A tightness in his chest eases, something that's been there for the longest time. 

Sam leans forward and presses their lips together. Dean draws in a breath when Sam’s tongue touches his. Wrapping his arms around Sam and pulling him close, he feels Sam hardening against him. It's somehow shocking and frightening and very deeply arousing all at the same time. He pushes his hips forward, getting closer. Sam groans into his mouth.

“I’m waiting for you,” Caleb’s voice calls from a distance. “Would the two of you hurry up so we can get back before sunset.”

They pull apart and grin at each other, flushed and breathing hard.

Caleb has supper with them that night and keeps making irritated huffing sounds when they give each other heated looks across the kitchen table. He decides to break his vow of sobriety, blames both of them for it, and is decidedly unsteady on his feet when he gets up to leave.

“You don’t need to go. You can stay the night here,” Dean says, suppressing a grin as he watches Caleb steady himself with a hand on the table.

Caleb rolls his eyes. “I have absolutely no intention of spending the night in this house. Try not to wake up the neighboring villagers. I doubt they’d be as tolerant as I am of what’s going on here.”

At the door, he shakes their hands in turn. “I’ll be leaving in the morning. Take care of each other. I’m sure somewhere in the future our paths will cross again.”

“Thank you,” Dean says to him seriously. “For staying and teaching me. You’re right, family doesn’t end with blood.”

Caleb smiles and claps him affectionately on the shoulder. “I have a feeling this village has grown too small for the two of you now. Don’t get yourself into too much trouble out there. Either of you. Keep each other honest.”

They go back and sit at the table after Caleb leaves, neither of them sure how to take that next step into the world of possibility that opened up before them when they held each other under the towering tree.

Eventually, Sam says, “We don’t have to, not tonight. If that’s not what you want. If you’re not ready, I mean.”

Dean smiles at Sam’s tentativeness. Strangely, he feels without embarrassment or nervousness. It's just Sam and it's just him. “Let’s go to bed and see what happens. I’ve missed having your cold feet on me all night and the way you snore in my ear.”

Sam smiles and leads the way upstairs to the bedroom they used to share.

Of course what happens is that as soon as they step over the threshold into the darkened room, they turn to each other and start kissing, their mouths instantly going hot and hungry. Frantically, they pull at their clothes, laughing at each other's clumsy eagerness, until they’re naked and trembling under each other’s hands. 

Dean pulls Sam onto the bed and rolls on top of him, groaning at the feeling of his brother's naked body under his and the heat of his soft skin. Sam opens his legs and Dean fits between them, sucking in a deep stuttering breath when their erections slide together. He cradles Sam’s head and kisses him deep, their tongues sliding and matching the rhythm of their hips moving together. They're both so hard. Sam's legs wrap over his and hold him close. 

Lifting up and leaning on his elbow, Dean asks, “Do you want my hand or my mouth?”

Sam makes a groaning sound deep in his throat. “You mean I have to choose?”

Dean laughs and rolls off him. He keeps his leg slung over one of Sam’s and trails his hand down Sam’s chest and stomach, feeling his muscles flutter, down to his groin. Sam sucks in a breath of anticipation. Dean reaches lower and strokes him, feels the way he twitches under his hand.

“No, you don’t have to choose. You can have both,” he whispers in Sam’s ear and licks the side of his neck, sucking hard when he finds Sam's fast-beating pulse as he wraps his hand around the hot, heavy weight between Sam’s legs and starts a steady stroking movement. The sound Sam makes and the way he arches his back, makes Dean unconsciously rut against the side of his hip.

“Yes, do that.” Sam weaves his arm under Dean’s and clutches his lower back, pulling him closer. “Rub yourself against me like that.”

Dean tightens his hand on him and thrusts against his hip. Sam makes a gasping sound of pleasure and moves his hand from the bottom of Dean’s spine, lower, kneads hard muscle, then slips his fingers in-between and rubs deep and hard. It's shockingly intimate. Dean’s groan is loud in the quiet dark. A few more thrusts against Sam's hip and he's coming. His orgasm feels like it locks him in the moment, focuses his senses on the smell of Sam’s hair, the hard velvety feeling of his erection in Dean's hand, the small, gasping moans he starts to make as he arches and comes, the strong, distinct smell of his release. Dean feels flooded with sensation, unconscious of anything but this feeling of being close and together, the deeply intense pleasure of climaxing together.

Sweaty and satisfied, he rolls onto his back, his hand resting on Sam’s diaphragm, feeling his breathing slowing down. He laughs and murmurs a sound of agreement when Sam says,“We really have been wasting time not doing this.”

Sam rolls on to his side, flings a leg over Dean and tucks his head into his neck, his breath warm against Dean’s skin. Dean can feel the wetness between Sam's legs against his hip and thinks maybe they should clean up, but then decides he likes the feeling of Sam's sweat and come on his skin. It feels real and honest and physical. They can wash later.

Turning his head, he kisses Sam on the forehead and they lie like that listening to each other breathe. The moon appears at the window, full and glowing white. There’s the sound of an owl hooting nearby, echoed a few moments later by its mate’s reply.

“We need to find him. He shouldn't be out there on his own without us.”

Dean watches a cloud move across the moon, its edges glowing with pale light. “Yes, we don’t belong here anymore.” He hears an echo memory of the sound of his mother moving in the kitchen downstairs and sighs.

“What would he think about this?” Sam asks.

Dean pulls Sam’s arm tighter over his chest. “We don’t need anybody’s permission.”

“No, we don’t,” Sam agrees and turns to kiss him on the mouth. “I love you.”

Dean murmurs the words back at him, already falling asleep.

He dreams about Sam waiting for him in a clearing in the forest, naked and beautiful in the moonlight, a wolf at his side.

THE END


End file.
